


Mothers' Intuition

by eternaleponine



Series: Where There Is A Flame [29]
Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Angst, Child Abandonment, Family, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-13
Updated: 2018-06-13
Packaged: 2019-05-21 04:33:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 15,591
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14908400
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/eternaleponine/pseuds/eternaleponine
Summary: For the past six months, Echo and Luna have been raising Adria as their own.  Her mother has suddenly decided she wants to see her again, and they fear that she will try to take Adria away, and there is nothing they can do to stop her.  Their friends are determined to make sure that that doesn't happen.





	1. Emori

"She's late," Emori said, absently rubbing her hand over her swollen belly. She had sworn to herself that she wasn't going to become one of those pregnant women who was constantly touching her stomach, but it was hard not to when after a certain point pretty much every aspect of your life was dictated by it. The butterflies in her stomach were punctuated by kicks and jabs that told her Razzbaby was awake and practicing its acrobatic skills before it got too cramped in there to do more than squirm a little. "Maybe she's not coming." 

Adria's mom – Ashley – had called her sister, Echo's coworker Katie, a few days ago to announce that she was going to be in town and that she wanted to see her daughter. Katie had relayed the message to Echo and Luna. Emori was pretty sure that Echo hadn't slept more than an hour or two since, her thoughts chasing themselves in circles, plagued by 'what if's that all boiled down to one thing: What if she takes our daughter?

Because Emori knew that that's how the newlyweds thought of their unexpected charge. She was their daughter and had been almost from the moment she'd set foot in Luna's tiny apartment. Six, almost seven months later, and those feelings had only deepened, even as they knew the reality was that the legal documents Adria's mother had signed that gave them the ability to make medical decisions and sign permission slips gave them absolutely no legal standing, no protection if her mother showed up and decided she was ready to take her back.

Emori wasn't going to let that happen. Not to Echo, and not to Adria. No fucking way.

Which was why she'd "borrowed" Echo's phone and sent a text changing the time they had planned to meet at a park near Katie's apartment from 11 to 10, and then deleted the message before Echo could see it. Emori needed to get to her first and make sure she knew what was what before she saw Adria and got any ideas about where that girl belonged and who she belonged with, because from what Echo had said, and what Emori had seen in the texts they'd exchanged, she was really excited about the visit. 

A day late and a buck short was better than nothing, right?

Never mind the fact that she had been AWOL for so long that Adria's visits to her counselor to work through everything she was feeling about her mother's abandonment had decreased from twice a week to once, because there just wasn't that much to say anymore. 

Never mind that for the first few months Adria had had a panic attack any time she didn't know exactly where Echo and Luna were and when they would be home, because she was so afraid that they might not come home at all, and what would happen to her then?, but now she only occasionally asked – as any child would – about their whereabouts and estimated arrival.

Never mind that 'when my mommy comes back' had shifted to 'if my mommy comes back', and her tone when she said it had gone from one of doubt to one that could easily be mistaken for dread. 

Never mind that Echo and Luna had considered not even telling Adria why they were coming to the park – this particular park – because they couldn't be sure that Ashley would actually show up, and what Adria didn't know couldn't hurt her. At least not as much as it would if she got her hopes up and then had them dashed... again. (In the end they had, to give her the opportunity to talk about it with her counselor beforehand and figure out coping strategies to deal with whatever ended up happening.)

Never mind any of that. 

It was only the heart of a little girl she was playing with. 

Emori was about to give up when she saw someone walking toward the playground, scanning the kids darting around and through the slides and swings and monkey bars. She looked like Adria, a little, if Emori squinted. "Ashley!"

The woman stopped and turned, and Emori pushed herself up, walking toward her, not really surprised when Ashley made no move to meet her halfway. When she was close enough to speak without shouting, she smiled and extended a hand. "Hi," she said. "I'm Emori. I'm a friend of Echo and Luna's." 

Ashley crossed her arms, eying her up and down, snagging first on her belly and then on her left arm... or lack thereof, before making her way up to her face again. "Where are they?" she asked. "Where's Adria?"

"They're running a little late," Emori lied. "Runaway chicken emergency or something. They were going to text you but then they thought you might already be on your way and you might not check your messages, so they asked me to come meet you and let you know. I live right around the corner." 

"... Chicken emergency?" Ashley echoed, and Emori breathed a silent sigh of relief. Sure, it might be a problem if Ashley mentioned it later, but hopefully she would forget all about it when she saw Adria. 

Emori grinned. "Do you want to sit down?" she asked, gesturing back to the picnic table she'd been sitting at before letting her hand rest – deliberately this time – on the bump that strained the front of her t-shirt. 

"Oh, right." Ashley actually smiled. "Of course." They made their way back to the table and sat down, both of them on the same side of the table so Emori had to turn so they could face each other, but that was probably better than trying to wedge herself in anyway.

"How far along are you?" Ashley asked.

"Six months," Emori said, "almost seven. I'm due in September." 

"Boy or girl?"

"We decided we wanted it to be a surprise," Emori said. Which was an oversimplification, because what they'd really decided was that they weren't going to let their baby's genitalia dictate how it was raised, and so they planned to raise the baby in as gender-neutral way as possible until it was old enough to tell them whether it wanted to be 'he' or 'she'. It was a plan that might not survive contact with the world outside their family, but they were going to give it a shot anyway. But that wasn't a conversation that needed to be had with a potentially judgmental stranger.

"What are you hoping for?" Ashley asked. 

"I just want it to be healthy," Emori said. 

Ashley made a noncommittal noise. "What about the dad? Is he...?"

"He just wants a healthy baby too," Emori said. 

This time Ashley looked down so that Emori couldn't see her face clearly, but she thought she might have rolled her eyes. Maybe she didn't believe Emori, but it didn't really matter. There was a pause, and then she said, "I was hoping for a boy."

"Why?" Emori asked, preparing to bite her tongue against the snarky comment that would undoubtedly rise up in response to whatever gender stereotype bullshit Ashley was about to spew. 

"Because life is easier for boys," Ashley said. 

Oh. Maybe not so bullshit after all.

"When they told me that I was having a girl, I hoped they were wrong. I hoped maybe they'd just read the ultrasound wrong or whatever. I kept hoping right up until she was born." She shrugged, gave a sort of half-smile. "But then they put her in my arms and it didn't matter anymore, because she was beautiful and perfect and _mine_ , and she was my whole world and I was hers, and nothing else mattered at all." 

"Yeah," Emori said. She still had a few more months before she would really know what it felt like to hold the tiny human that had been growing inside her, to finally see the face of what up until then she had only felt, to have what still seemed surreal so much of the time become a very real reality that she could touch and hold, but she could guess what it might be like, considering that she would already do anything, give anything, to protect the tiny helpless life inside her, and all she'd ever seen was a few grainy pictures of a blob on a screen. 

"She was the best thing that ever happened to me," Ashley said. "When I found out I was pregnant, obviously I freaked out at first, and I tried to hide it, but eventually you can't, and when my foster parents found out, they were like, 'No, no fucking way, we're not doing this,' and they sent me off to this group home for girls who were pregnant or parenting, and I hated it at first, because there were so many rules and all these other girls and their kids, and some of those kids were real brats, and some of the girls were real bitches, but, like, the people who worked there? They actually gave a shit. They wanted us all to be, like, successful, and to be healthy and for our babies to be healthy, and for us to be good moms if we were keeping them which not everyone did, but I knew there was no way in hell I was giving up my baby, no way in hell I was letting her end up in the system." She shook her head violently. "No fucking way. Not my kid. She was gonna have a better life than me." 

Emori clenched her jaw. _Then what the fuck happened?_ , she wanted to ask, but instead she let Ashley keep talking, because the more Emori knew, the more ammunition she would have. 

"They even made sure I still got to see Katie on weekends," Ashley said, "which they didn't have to do. She got to stay where we'd been staying, which was actually good – good for a foster home anyway – when she might not have gotten to if I was still around, because it was always me that was the problem, not her, but we didn't want to be split up, so whenever they would get sick of me, both of us would get sent packing. So really, it was good for both of us. All of us." Her smile faded. "But then I got too old to stay there anymore – you could only stay, even in the transitional housing apartments – until you were 21 or until your kid started school, whichever was first, but for us both was at the same time. So then we had to figure things out on our own." Her shoulders slumped. "Turns out I wasn't very good at that. People don't want to hire someone with only a high school diploma and a kid who they always need to be picking up or dropping off or taking to the doctor or whatever, and you can't get a place to live if you don't have a job, and we ended up moving around a lot and Adria was always asking why, why, why and crying because sometimes she had to change schools and leave her friends behind, and sometimes I would just get so sick of it, you know?" 

She looked down, then back up at Emori. It was like a switch had been flipped. "You probably think I'm a shitty mother," she said. "You probably think I don't love my daughter, but I do, and you have no right to judge me, because you don't fucking know what it's like. You think being pregnant is hard? Just wait. Just fucking wait." She crossed her arms, glaring at Emori like she was daring her to try to contradict. 

"I don't think that," Emori said carefully. "I know you love your daughter." 

Ashley jutted her chin. "Yeah? How?"

"You're here," Emori said. "You told her that you would come back to see her in the summer, and you did. You made her a promise and you kept it. If you didn't love her, you wouldn't have bothered, right?"

"Right," Ashley said. She pulled her phone from her pocket and looked at the screen, then at Emori, her eyes narrowed. "Where the fuck are they?" she asked. "Where the fuck is my daughter?"

"They're on their way," Emori said. "They'll be here at eleven."

"They said ten!"

"No," Emori said. " _I_ said ten."

Ashley's fingers curled into fists, and Emori tried to shift without making it obvious, tried to figure out what she would do if this bitch attacked her. "Who the fuck are you?" Ashley asked. "Why are you _really_ here? Did they send you here to—"

"They don't know I'm here," Emori said. "But I need you to listen—"

"You fucking—" She started to lunge, and Emori curled protectively around her belly, because what the hell else was she supposed to do? But the attack never came, the blow never landed, and finally Emori looked up again. 

"I need you to listen to me," Emori said, as calmly as she could, "because we all want the same thing." She let out a breath slowly. "We all want what's best for your daughter."

"I don't see what that has to do with you," Ashley said. "I don't see why you've got your nose all up in my business." 

"Because Echo and Luna are two of my best friends," Emori said, "and more than that, they are two of the best people I have ever met. And they love your daughter. They would do anything for her."

"So what? That still doesn't explain why you lied to me, and to them, why you're here and they're not." 

"I'm here because you need to understand what you're doing to your child, the one that you love so much, the one that you swore you wanted a better life for. I want you to understand what you've already done, and what they're trying to undo, but I know if you hear it from them, you're just going to look at them and think that they don't know anything, they don't know where you came from, they don't know what you've been through, and you know what? You'd be right."

"And you think you do?" Ashley snarled.

"Not all of it," Emori said, "but yes. I know what's it's like. When I was born my mother left the hospital without me, which was totally legal because of Safe Harbor laws. She left me, and they put me in the system, and if I had been a cute white baby it probably would have only been for as long as it took for the adoption papers to go through, but funny thing – no one wants a defective brown baby. So I just got bounced from home to home, never really wanted, never really loved, just a check for someone to collect until I finally aged out, and then it was just doing whatever I needed to do to get through one day and make it to the next. I wasn't living, I was just surviving, and it was only the fact that I didn't trust anyone, ever, that kept me from ending up mixed up with the wrong people, probably, and in bigger trouble than I ever got into on my own." She swallowed, licked her lips. "When I met John – the baby's father, my husband now – neither of us was in a great place, and we could have dragged each other down, but instead we pulled each other up. We were lucky. _I_ was lucky. We found a place to live, found friends... started to let ourselves imagine more than just tomorrow or next week. But it could have gone very differently. I could have been you. Easily. I just got lucky."

Ashley eyed her, still wary, but listening. Emori reached into her bag and pulled out two small bottles of water, offering one to Ashley, who shook her head, but Emori set it on the table next to her anyway before cracking open the other one and taking a sip. 

"You said that Adria was the best thing that ever happened to you," Emori said. Ashley nodded. "You said that you wanted a better life for her, that you weren't going to let her end up in the system." Another nod. "But then you abandoned her." 

"You bitch," Ashley hissed. "You don't get to judge me. You don't fucking know—"

"Maybe I don't know," Emori said, "but here's what I think. I think that when you were in that program, you finally had what you always wanted, what every kid wants: stability, and structure, and people to rely on. And then that went away, and you couldn't figure out how to create it for yourself, so you just regressed back to what was easy, what was normal, which for people like you and me is chaos. You slid back into a life where the only constant was change, and if it was just you, maybe that would have been okay, but now you had Adria, too, and she wasn't just a helpless little doll to play with anymore. She was a person, who wanted things and needed things, who had her own thoughts and feelings, and they didn't always match up with yours. You dragged her into that chaos and when it upset her, you couldn't handle it. So you dumped her on your sister and you ran."

Ashley bristled. "I didn't _abandon_ her," she said. "I just... I needed a fucking break, so I left her with my sister who would take better care of her. That's not abandoning her!"

Emori took a deep breath, in the through the nose, out through the mouth like they did in the prenatal yoga class that Luna had somehow convinced her would be a good idea (and which she didn't actually hate). This wasn't how she wanted this conversation to go. If all she did was piss Ashley off, she was _more_ likely to take Adria away, not less, and if this backfired, if she cost her best friend her child... Echo might forgive her, but she would never forgive herself. 

"Okay," she said. "You're right. You made sure that she was somewhere where she would be safe, and when Katie told you that she didn't have the time to take care of Adria the way she deserved, you signed the papers so that Echo and Luna could take care of her instead. And they've given her the structure and stability that she needs, and the love that she deserves, and—" She stopped. A picture was worth a thousand words, and words weren't getting them where Emori wanted them to be. "Can I show you?"

"Show me what?" Ashley asked. 

"Your daughter's life now." Emori didn't wait for her to answer, just pulled out her phone and opened it up to the collection of pictures she'd put together the night before for this purpose. She held the phone to Ashley. "Here," she said. "Look." 

Ashley took the phone and began to scroll through, quickly at first and then more and more slowly, giving Emori the chance to tell her who the people in the pictures were, when they'd been taken, whatever she could to try to convince her that this was the life that she wanted for her daughter, this was the best life that she could give her... even if it wasn't with her. 

"That's Ontari," Emori said when she got to a picture from Easter. In it both Adria and Ontari were laughing because Adria had said something to tease Ontari – Emori couldn't remember what now – and Lexa had managed to capture the moment when Ontari grabbed her and started tickling her in retaliation for the sass. "Echo's sister. She lives in the farm house with them and is always getting Adria little gifts. Pretty much anything with a mermaid on it." 

Ashley smiled. "She still likes mermaids?"

Emori nodded. "She had a mermaid shirt that was getting too small, but she didn't want to get rid of it because it was her favorite – you got it for her as a birthday present when you took her to the aquarium – so Echo called around until she found an aquarium that still had them, and bought one in every size they had so she would have them to grow into."

Ashley sniffed. "What about this one?" she asked, scrolling to the next picture. 

"Oh, that's Madi," Emori said. "That was at the wedding – Luna and Echo's wedding. Madi is our friend Clarke and Lexa's daughter. They just adopted her last year. She was in foster care before that, about to be adopted, but then she got hurt in an accident and when her foster parents didn't know if she would recover, or how much, they gave up on her. Honestly, we all thought Clarke and Lexa were crazy at the time. They're your age, maybe younger, and they didn't know anything about being parents, barely knew anything about kids, but... they knew when they met her that she was meant to be theirs." She smiled. "Echo and Luna put Adria in the same school as Madi, even got her in the same class, so she would at least have one friend as the new kid. Now they're BFFs, practically inseparable. Clarke and Lexa and Madi live in the other house on the farm, so they can just walk across the yard to see each other any time they want."

Another sniff. Another picture. "That's my husband John. He's a chef, and about once a month he runs the Kids' Culinary Academy – they named it themselves – and teaches Madi, Adria, and Veelu – she's the little one standing on the chair there, Clarke's little sister and Echo's Best Smol Friend, long story – about food and cooking. They have a lot of fun, and make a lot of messes, but they always clean them up again. Adria usually leads the charge with the cleanup. She's very responsible that way." 

"She's a good kid," Ashley said. 

"She is," Emori agreed. "We love her. All of us. And I know you love her. I _know_ you do. I know you want her to have the best life that she can. You want her to be happy and healthy. You want her to never have to worry about where she's going to sleep tonight or whether she's going to get to eat. You want her to feel safe and loved. You want her to feel like she has a home, and a family, like you never did. I know." She rubbed her belly, the words coming easily because it was everything she wished for her own child, that she imagined every parent wanted for their child.

"What I came here to tell you, to show you, is that she has that. She has all of that, and we will never, every let that be taken from her," Emori said. "I know that you love your daughter, but the question is whether you love her enough to do what's right. Because I think you know what that is."

Ashley shook her head, her eyes filling with tears. "No," she said, but Emori didn't think she meant it as an answer. She just didn't want to hear what Emori was going to say. "No," she said again. "I'm not letting you take her away from me."

Emori ground her teeth, forced herself to breathe. "You know she's safe with us," she said. "What happens if you take her, and then it gets to be too much again? It's not going to get easier as she gets older; it's only going to get harder. What happens if next time you need a break, you leave her with a friend and they decide that they don't want to take care of her and they call child protective services and she ends up in the system? What if, while you're gone, their pervert uncle, boyfriend, brother, whatever, hell, even one of their kids decides that they—"

"NO!" Ashley yelled. "Don't you even—"

"It could happen," Emori said. "You know it could. You know it happens. All. The. Time."

Ashley's head kept shaking as the tears spilled over. "No," she said again. "Not to my daughter. I won't let that happen to my daughter."

"Neither will we," Emori said. "Not Echo or Luna, not any of us. We have all been through hell and we've come out the other side, and we won't let our children go through what we went through. Not any of them, not ever. So I'm going to ask you one more time: Do you love Adria enough to let her go?"

Ashley gulped tears flowing down her cheeks. "Even if I wanted to, I couldn't. It's not like your mother leaving you at the hospital. You can't do that once they're not babies anymore."

"That's true," Emori said, "but you _can_ voluntarily terminate your parental rights."

"Then she'll end up in the system!"

"She doesn't have to," Emori said. "I talked to Lexa, who's in law school, and she talked to some of her professors. It's possible for you to terminate your rights to allow Adria to be adopted. It's unusual, but it's possible." She reached into her bag, pulled out a folder. "I have all of the information here." 

Ashley took it, her hands shaking. "I don't—"

"Just read it. Think about it." 

Ashley looked at the folder and finally, slowly, nodded. 

A familiar voice came from the direction of the parking lot. "Kodiiiii! Slow doooown! I'm supposed to be walking you, you're not supposed to be walking me!" It was followed by the sound of laughter, and Emori stood up, but it was too late. She wasn't going to be able to get away before they saw her, so she didn't try. She just waved. 

When Adria saw her mother she stopped walking. The giant puppy, now in the gangly teenage stage, stopped too, and came back to her, standing in front of her like he was going to shield her from whatever was making her afraid. 

"Hey baby," Ashley said, wiping her eyes and crouching down, holding out her arms. "Can I get a hug?"

Adria looked up at Luna, reaching for her hand. Luna took it and squeezed, leaning down to whisper something in her ear. She took the leash from Adria, and they all watched as the girl made her way slowly to her mother and was enfolded in her arms. After a second, Adria hugged her back, and Emori picked up her bag and moved away, giving them their moment. 

Echo followed her, taking her arm to stop her when they were out of earshot. "What did you do?" she asked. Suspicious. Afraid. 

"What needed to be done," Emori said. "It's going to be okay."

Echo looked up, blinking hard. "You don't know that," she said. 

"I do," Emori said. "I know you don't trust her, but trust me."

"How?" Echo asked. "Why?"

Emori reached up and wiped the tear from Echo's cheek. "Mothers' intuition." Echo caught her hand, squeezing hard, and Emori squeezed back. "Invite her to the party tomorrow," she said. "Make sure she lets you bring Adria home with you tonight and invite her to the party tomorrow. I showed her some pictures, but she needs to really see what Adria has. What she would be taking from her. She already knows what the right thing to do is." 

"I hope you're right," Echo said.

"I am," Emori told her. "We just need to prove it."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Special treat this week - or at least I hope you'll think it's a treat! - I'll be posting a chapter every day through Sunday. I was going to post different parts of this as separate stories but decided to keep it all together as one, so instead it's five chapters. Enjoy!


	2. Echo

Echo went back to where Luna was standing. She reached down and sank her fingers into Kodi's ruff, scratching his neck and behind his ears. He looked up at her for a second, but then his attention went back to Adria, who was standing in front of her mother, nodding and shaking her head and shrugging, occasionally giving one or two words answers to the questions that she was being peppered with. 

After a few minutes Adria sighed. "Can we just go?" she asked. 

Ashley blinked. "Go? Go where?"

"Wherever you're taking me," Adria said. "That's why you're here, isn't it? You came to take me away. So can we just go?"

"I—" Ashley looked at them helplessly. 

Echo glanced at Luna, who seemed as startled as she was, and stepped in. "No one's going anywhere today," she said, crouching down and touching Adria's arm gently. "We still have the big family party tomorrow, right? The birthday-anniversary-graduation party for Octavia and Lexa and Clarke and Madi and Ontari and Tris. You can't miss that!" She forced herself to sound upbeat, like their world wasn't threatening to come crashing down around them. 

"I don't want to," Adria said. "I don't want to go to the party if I have to leave after." She looked at Echo. "Can you just tell everyone goodbye for me? And happy birthday and anniversary and graduation? Can you give them the cards I made? They're on the desk in my room. I mean the room that... that _was_ mine. They're not very good, but..." She shrugged, sniffled. "And tell Madi I'm sorry that I lied, too."

"Lied?" Echo frowned. "What did you lie about?"

"I told her that... that if I had to go... I would... if we had free wi-fi I would... um, I would FaceTime her." Her words came out in hiccuped gasps as her tears spilled and rolled down her cheeks. "But I won't. Because it would hurt too much and make me too sad, so... so tell her I'm sorry I lied... and I hope that... that she finds a new best friend. A better one... than me. Tell her that, okay?" 

Echo's heart broke. Shattered. It was all she could do not to scoop Adria up and run with her, get her in the car and drive as far and as fast as she could to somewhere where her mother could never find her. 

"Hey," Ashley said, reaching to tuck back a strand of Adria's hair, but letting her hand drop when the little girl flinched away, leaning hard into Echo, who put her arm around her shoulders. She knew Ashley saw all of it and knew that it hurt. She squashed the thought that she deserved it. "We're not going anywhere today, baby girl," Ashley said. "There's, um, there's something wrong with my car that I need to get fixed. So we can't go anywhere for a couple of days, probably. And it might be they can't fix it at all, and then I would have to get a new car, and... and maybe I might decide to stay here for a while, so... so I think maybe you don't need to say goodbye yet, okay?" 

Adria shrugged, crossing her arms over her belly, her fingers digging into the opposite elbows. 

"I just wanted to see you, see how you're doing, hear about school and—"

"School's over," Adria said. 

"Right, well... you can, um, you can tell me how it was. Finals, or..."

"There's no finals in _fourth grade_ ," Adria said. She scrubbed the lingering tears from her eyes angrily.

"Of course," Ashley said. "I knew that. I just—"

The conversation was interrupted by a big fluffy dog interjecting himself in the space between them, nearly knocking Ashley, who was still crouched down, over in the process. "Oh!" she said. "Who's this?"

"This is Kodi," Adria said, picking up his leash and wrapping it around her wrist. Echo glanced back at Luna as she stood up. Luna just lifted one shoulder and let it fall, and Echo knew that her "accidentally" dropping the leash hadn't been an accident at all. She'd known he wouldn't run off; that wasn't what livestock guardian dogs did. They guarded their herd or flock, and right now, Kodi's herd was one little girl, and he took his job very seriously. When she finally managed to get Kodi to stop licking the salty tracks from her face, she said, "He was Echo's birthday present, but he likes to sleep in my room. When we get goats it will be his job to protect them."

"Goats, huh? I heard you have chickens."

"We do," Adria said. "We just got them. Me and Madi like to collect the eggs. And we help in the garden, too. The best job is picking strawbabies." She smiled crookedly. "I mean strawberries. We have _so many_ we can have strawberry shortcake for dessert practically every day. Even after all the ones we eat while we're picking them." She flashed a sly look at Echo, who tried to make a stern face back at her, but it didn't last. 

"What else?" Ashley asked. 

"What else do we do on the farm?" Adria asked. 

"What else do you like to do?"

Maybe it was the reassurance that she wasn't being taken right that minute that made the difference, because Adria finally started to open up, telling her mother about the bike she got for her birthday and how she and Madi liked to have races around the driveway, and how they found the local library by the farm and she got a library card, and she was happy that the library had all the American Girl books, which she and Ontari liked to read together. They made their way toward the playground, and Echo took Kodi's leash so that Adria could go on the swings. Adria told Ashley that her doctor before had been wrong about her asthma going away, but it was a lot better than it was back in the winter, and how she'd gone to the dentist and they'd found a cavity but it wasn't too bad and it was in a baby tooth that was going to fall out soon anyway so they hadn't made her get a filling. She talked on and on, and Echo watched Ashley's face as she tried to take it all in until it finally became too much and she just checked out and stopped listening. 

Luna must have noticed the same thing because she nudged Echo, inclining her head toward them. 

"Emori suggested inviting Ashley to the party," Echo said softly. "Let her see all of this for herself."

"What do you think?" Luna asked. 

"I don't know," Echo said. "Emori told me to trust her, that Ashley already knows the right thing to do, we just need to prove it to her, but..." 

"But you want to take Adria and hide her where Ashley can never find her." Luna smiled. "I know. But maybe Emori is right. You know that she would never do anything that she thought would hurt you."

Echo sighed and nodded. Trust wasn't something that came easily to her, faith even less so. Despite that, she went to the swing set and stood near Ashley, Luna on her other side. Ashley was only half-heartedly pushing Adria, her mind obviously elsewhere. "I was thinking," she said. "If you want, you can come to the party tomorrow. Meet all of these people that Adria is talking about. It's gotta be pretty confusing, all of these names and no faces."

"Your friend showed me a few pictures," Ashley said. 

"Still," Echo said. "There will be lots of people there, because we're celebrating a lot of things all at once. Birthdays and graduations... turns out June is pretty busy month for us, although some of the graduations were in May. But in May we were focused on the wedding." She forced a smile. "We can text you the address. It starts around one but people will be coming and going all afternoon so whenever you can come is fine. You don't need to bring anything, but if you want we can never have too many chips."

"Barbecue are her favorite," Ashley said. 

_Oh, you actually know that?_ , Echo thought, but bit her tongue. "Yeah. She told us you would get them for her as a treat whenever you could." _And then bitched at her about how she better make them last because money didn't grow on trees._

Ashley almost smiled. "I'm glad she remembers that," she said softly. "I'll... I'll see if I can make it. I'll try. Just... my car. Which actually I should see about getting to a garage to have checked out. Before they close. So I should go."

Adria dragged her feet in the dirt to come to a stop, twisting around to look at her mother. "You're leaving?"

"I need to get my car checked out, remember? But I'll see you tomorrow, probably. At the party. Okay?"

"Okay," Adria said. She hopped off the swing and came to give her mother a hug, quick and perfunctory. "I'll see you tomorrow maybe." She didn't sound like she really believed it. 

"I love you, baby girl," Ashley said. 

"I love you too, Mommy," Adria said, but again, there was little conviction behind the words, and she was already reaching for Luna's hand. Echo didn't think it was because she didn't mean them, though. Maybe she was just finally realizing that no matter how much she loved her mother, she couldn't change her, so it was easier to not try to hold on too tight. 

Ashley turned and walked away, no thank you or goodbye for them, but maybe she didn't think she owed them that, and maybe she didn't. Echo didn't really care; what mattered was that she was walking away alone. 

"Keep playing or go home?" Echo asked. 

Adria shrugged. "It would be more fun if Madi was here." 

"What, are you saying we're not fun?" Echo teased. 

Adria wrinkled up her nose. "You're fun... for grown-ups..." 

Echo stuck out her tongue at Adria, whose face split in a grin, the first real smile they'd seen all day. "All right, sassy," Echo said. "I'll take that as a vote for home. Although this has made me realize that I have overlooked something really important on the farm."

"What?" Adria asked. She reached for Echo's hand, and Echo quickly switched Kodi's leash to the opposite wrist so that hopefully they wouldn't end up tangled up in it. 

"A swing!" Echo said, swinging Adria's hand as if to demonstrate. "When I was growing up we had a tire swing, which was never very comfy to sit on, but it was great if you wanted to make yourself really dizzy for some reason. We could just do a regular swing, though, if you're not feeling that daring." She looked down at Adria and winked, and it was Adria's turn to stick out her tongue.

They piled back into the car, making sure that Adria was securely buckled and had a tight grip on Kodi's leash, just in case. The dog took up about three-quarters of the back seat when he sprawled out, leaving Adria less than her fair share, but she didn't seem to mind. 

When they got home Madi came running to meet them, waving her brand new Tae Kwon Do belt – blue with a white stripe – that they'd watched her test for the night before, and that she'd gotten in class that morning. They started to run off, but Echo caught them. "What are the rules?" she asked.

"Don't go past the barn," Adria said. 

"And don't go more than halfway down the driveway toward the road," Madi added. 

"And stay close enough to the house that we can see it and hear if you ring the bell," Adria said.

"And come back if we hear the bell," Madi finished. 

"Good girls," Echo said, and watched them run off to the patch of shade on one side of the barn where they liked to go to talk when they didn't want grown-ups to hear, with Kodi at their heels. Even if they forgot the rules, the dog wouldn't, even young as he was. He wouldn't let them stray too far. 

"Do you think Adria will tell Madi about her mom?" Echo asked.

"I think it's likely that she probably already has," Luna said. "But yes, I think they'll talk about seeing her again. I think Madi might understand better than we can, and Adria doesn't have to worry so much about saying the wrong thing to her."

"There's nothing she could say that would change—" Echo started but stopped at Luna's smile. 

"You know that, and I know that, but she's still learning," she said gently. "It will take time."

Time that Echo could only hope that they had.


	3. Luna

When Kodi started whining at their bedroom door, Luna could only laugh. First it had been a barrage of text messages, some to her, others to Echo, but with the possibility that it might be Ashley or Katie trying to reach them, they hadn't dared ignore them. Even Ontari had texted Echo – from upstairs – to ask if everything was all right. Given the timing of the message, Luna was fairly sure that Echo's response had been something rude.

"This is not fucking happening," Echo groaned as the whining turned to the dog headbutting the door. She sat up and reached for her shirt. 

"I think you mean this fucking is not happening," Luna teased. "I'll get it."

"He's my dog," Echo said. "He probably needs to go out."

"Yes, but I'm still dressed."

"Not for lack of trying!" Echo scowled, and Luna decided to risk making the dog wait a few seconds longer to kiss the surly expression away. 

"Be right back," she said, and slid out from under the covers. When she opened the door, though, Kodi didn't head for the stairs like he normally would when he needed a middle-of-the-night potty break. Instead he went down the hallway to Adria's room, slipped through the open door (which was always left that way so he could get in and out when he wanted to) and then looked back at Luna expectantly.

Luna took a step closer and heard the muffled sound of Adria crying. She was trying to hide it, but her entire small body shook with the sobs. Luna pushed the door open farther and stepped in, going to the side of the bed and sitting down, reaching to where Adria had curled in a ball smack in the center and put a hand on her back. " _Was ist los, meine Liebchen?_ " she asked. " _Was kann ich tun?_ "

Adria lifted her head and looked at her, eyes swollen, cheeks wet, nose red and raw. She and Madi had been playing around with the language apps, picking up German words and phrases when the fancy struck them, but even if she didn't understand the words, she understood the sentiment behind them. She threw herself into Luna's arms with a wail. 

Luna held her and rocked her, occasionally wiping her tears but there were always more that followed, so it was a mostly futile gesture. She looked up and saw Echo standing in the doorway, her face twisted with uncertainty and anguish, looking as helpless as Luna felt. Luna inclined her head toward the bed and Echo came in and sat on the other side. Together they tried to get Adria to calm down, to tell them what she was feeling so they could help her work through it, but every time she tried all that came out was strangled fragments of words that Luna couldn't turn into anything coherent no matter how hard she tried. 

Echo heard it before she did, when Adria's ragged breathing turned to wheezing, and she was up in an instant, going downstairs to where the nebulizer and Adria's medicine were kept, because usually she got her treatments cuddled up on the couch. She was back a minute later. "Bring her to our room," she said. "Maybe..." She didn't finish the sentence, but Luna thought she knew what Echo was thinking. Maybe picking Adria up and bringing her somewhere else would shake her up just enough to break the cycle she was clearly stuck in.

"Come on, _Liebchen_ ," Luna said, untangling her from the covers. "Put your arms around my neck and hold on." She got her arms around Adria's back and under her thighs and heaved her up, grateful when Adria didn't fight her. She carried her down the hall to their room and set her down on the bed where Echo had already made a little nest of pillows to prop her up in. 

"I know it's hard," Echo said, "but I need you to try to take some slow, deep breaths for me. Can you do that?" She drew in a breath through her nose and let it out slowly through her mouth, demonstrating, and after a few false starts and violent shakes of her head, Adria finally managed to drag in one long, shuddering breath, and then another. "Good girl," Echo said as she slipped the mask over Adria's face and turned on the machine. She scooted closer to Adria, drawing her against her side, and dropped a kiss on her head. "I know you hate this," she said, "but I promise you'll feel better after." 

Luna motioned to Echo that she would be right back, and hurried to Adria's room, picking up a book from her nightstand and bringing it back. Adria was slumped against Echo, the fight having drained from her, but at least the tears had finally dried up too. Luna tucked Adria's legs under the blankets, and then tucked herself in next to her, reaching behind her to take Echo's hand as she handed her the book with the other.

Echo smiled and mouthed, 'Thank you.' She opened to where they'd left off only hours before and started to read. 

When the timer on Echo's phone beeped, indicating that the treatment was done, Luna turned off the machine and helped Adria remove the mask, but they stayed quiet until Echo reached the end of the chapter and slipped the bookmark back into place. 

Almost instantly, Adria's eyes filled with tears and she started to sniffle. Luna reached for a box of Kleenex and put it in front of her, stroking her hair. "Please don't cry," she said. "Just try to relax and breathe. We're right here. We're not going anywhere." The floodgates opened again with a sound somewhere between a gasp and a scream. 

"No no no no no," Echo said. "Luna, she can't—" They couldn't let her get going again. If she worked herself up into another asthma attack, they were likely to spend the rest of the night in the ER. 

Luna pulled Adria into her lap, pulling her back hard against her chest, and Echo took Adria's hands and pressed them to her own chest, letting Adria feel the rise and fall of it. "Come on, sweet girl," Echo said. "In and out. You can do it. You need to breathe. You don't want to have to go to the hospital, right? I know you don't." 

_And we don't want to have to take you,_ Luna thought. The papers they had that authorized them to make medical decisions for Adria had gotten them through routine doctor's visits, but now was not the time to test just how durable the document was. 

After a few terrifying minutes, Adria calmed down again, and they cuddled her between them, each of them holding one of her hands in her lap.

"You want to tell us what's going on?" Luna asked finally. 

Adria shook her head where it rested heavily against Luna's shoulder, but a second later she whispered, "Mommy doesn't read to me." She sniffed, swallowed. "And she believed when the doctor said my asthma was gone, but it wasn't." 

"I know," Luna said, because what else could she say? 

Adria closed her eyes and was quiet for a long time. Long enough that Luna thought maybe she'd fallen asleep, but when she tried to shift her she stirred, knotting her fingers tight around theirs like she was afraid they might let go, and whimpered, "Don't!"

"Don't what, _Liebchen_?"

"Don't..." She squeezed her eyes shut and sucked in a breath, letting it out over a slow count, just like they'd taught her. Luna saw Echo bite her lip, fighting her own emotions. "Don't let her take me," she finished in a voice almost too quiet to hear. "I don't want to go."

"We don't want you to go," Luna said. "We're going to do everything we can to make sure you don't have to." 

"I know she's my mommy," Adria said. "But you're my _family_."

"Yes we are," Echo said. "And family—" Her voice broke and she couldn't finish. 

There was a soft knock on the door, and Luna looked up to see Ontari standing there, looking small and lost and so very, very young, like a scared child trapped in a grown woman's body. Luna suspected she'd probably been there for a while but hadn't known whether her presence would be welcome. 

"You can come in," Luna said. "It's all right."

"I know that the medicine leaves a yucky taste in her mouth," Ontari said. "I know it's late, but I thought maybe, just this once, midnight ice cream might be okay." Her eyes flicked from Luna to Echo and back again, looking for approval. 

"I think midnight ice cream is exactly what we all need right now," Luna said. "What about you, Adria? What do you think?"

Adria nodded. 

"I'll give you a hand," Echo said. She leaned in to kiss Adria's head and extricated her fingers from her grasp. "We'll be right back," she said. She took Ontari's arm gently and led her out of the room. Luna listened as they descended the stairs. 

Adria was still in her arms, and Luna just rested her cheek against her hair, rocking her gently. Adria reached up with her free hand, twisting one of Luna's curls around it. She didn't tug on it to watch it spring back up like most people would have – sometimes people Luna didn't know, and without permission. She hadn't yet maimed anyone for it, but it was tempting.

A few minutes later she heard Echo and Ontari coming back up, talking softly... or not so softly.

"What if she tries to take her?" Ontari demanded. "Are you just going to _let_ her?"

"It's not that—"

"You fought for me! You didn't care what it cost you! Are you not going to do the same for her?!"

They were right outside the door now, talking in hissed undertones, but Luna could still hear them clearly, and from how still she'd gotten, she suspected Adria could, too. She almost put her hands over Adria's ears, almost called out to them to interrupt, but something stopped her.

"Do you think we _like_ this?" Echo asked. "Do you think that this is _easy_? Do you think that it hasn't eaten at us every minute of every day since she signed those papers that they're _not enough_ and she could come back at any second and take _OUR DAUGHTER_?!"

Adria flinched at Echo's raised voice and pushed herself into Luna's lap. Luna tightened her arms around her. "It's all right," she said, loud enough that Echo and Ontari would hear and stop their bickering before it escalated further. Echo's expression was sheepish as she pushed through the door. "Look," Luna said in her most soothing tone. "They're back with the ice cream." 

Adria straightened up a little and managed to force up the corners of her lips just a little when Ontari handed her a bowl and spoon. The only sound for a little while was the clinking of metal against glass. When the ice cream was gone, Ontari gathered the dishes up again to take them back to the kitchen. 

When she was gone, Adria looked back and forth between them with wide eyes. "Am I?" she asked. "Am I your daughter?"

"Yes," Echo said, a fierce hiss.

"Of course you are," Luna said. 

"But my mommy—"

"Is still your mommy," Luna said. "But you know that family is more than that. Madi didn't grow in Clarke or Lexa's belly, but they're still her moms, aren't they?"

"Yes," Adria said. "But she never even knew her mommy. She doesn't remember her at all."

"I know it's not exactly the same," Luna said, "but the important thing is that it's not blood that makes a family, it's love. And we love you so much, and you are our family, and we are yours." 

Adria nodded, her eyes brimming again. "I love my mommy too, though," she said. 

"That's okay," Luna said. "You don't have to stop loving someone to love someone else. You can love lots of people. There's always more room in your heart if you want there to be."

"But sometimes there's not," Adria said. "Or..." She frowned. "Sometimes even if you love someone with your whole self... sometimes that's still not enough. Mommy..." She coughed, and Echo flinched, reaching out to rub her back. "I tried," Adria said softly. "I tried to love her enough but I couldn't. Because I'm not big enough."

"What do you mean?" Luna asked softly, letting go of Adria with one arm so she could take Echo's hand, because she was pretty sure she wasn't going to like whatever they were about to hear. 

"When I was a baby, Mommy loved me so, so much, and I was all that she needed. That's what she said. And I loved her too, because I was a baby and she was my Mommy and that's what babies do. But then... then I got bigger, and we had to move away from the house with the nice ladies who helped us and all the other moms and kids, and I think Mommy realized then that my love could only as big as I was, and I was small and she was big and I couldn't fill her up. And when we were living with all those other people, maybe they filled up the places that I couldn't, but once they were gone, there was just too much empty that I couldn't fill." 

Echo's nails dug into her arm where they gripped each other, and they exchanged a glance. The words were like glass daggers, plunged deep and twisted, shards breaking off when they hit bone and burying deep into all of their softest, most vulnerable places. 

"And I got bigger and bigger but never big enough to fill her up and maybe that's why how much she loves me didn't grow. It stayed baby-sized. So even though she loves me – I _know_ she loves me, she _has to_ – she doesn't love me enough to want to be with me all the time... only sometimes. That's why she didn't mind letting me stay with you, because I am too much work and too expensive and I talk too much about stuff she doesn't care about, and she just gets tired of me and goes to find other things to fill her up and make her happy."

_That's not how it works,_ Luna wanted to say, but the truth was, maybe that _was_ how it worked for Ashley. And who was she to tell a child that the narrative that she'd come up with to explain why her mother could so easily abandon her to the care of strangers – even benevolent ones – was wrong? If thinking that way helped her accept her mother's abandonment, helped her move past it, as heartbreaking as it was, she wasn't going to take it away from her. 

"That's why I want to stay here," Adria said, squirming around a little so that she could look at both of them. "You don't need me to fill you up, because you have each other, and the whole 'Ohana, and there is a place in your hearts for me but you don't need me to be everything. You don't need me to love you bigger than I am."

"No, we don't," Echo said. "But we love you as big as _you_ are."

"And we'll love you bigger and bigger when you grow," Luna told her. "No matter how big you grow, our love will stretch to fit." 

"And you'll have all of the rest of us to love you, too," Ontari said from the door, her voice scratchy, her eyes red-rimmed. "No matter how big you get, there will always be enough love for you here."

Adria nodded, and Echo motioned Ontari over and they held the little girl and each other tight for a long time. When they finally let go, Adria was struggling to keep her eyes open. They rearranged the pillows and settled around her. When Ontari tried to get up, Echo caught her hand and shook her head. Ontari immediately looked at Luna. 

Luna knew that it was sometimes awkward for Ontari, living with them and not knowing what her role was. She wasn't one of Adria's parents, but she _was_ an adult and could be responsible for adult things. She wasn't part of their relationship, but she was certainly part of the family. 

"You belong here too," Luna told her. "Tonight, we keep our family close." 

Ontari nodded, and Luna watched as she tucked herself against her sister's back. She couldn't help feeling a pang of something bittersweet, remembering the first time she and Echo had ever shared a bed... Ontari. Here they were again, their hearts just as heavy, not because of what they'd almost lost but because of what they stood to lose. 

They could keep her safe here, tonight, but what would tomorrow bring?

" _Gute Nacht, meine Liebchen_ ," Luna whispered, kissing Adria's forehead. 

"Good night, Luna," she said. She shifted around until her back was to Luna, and Luna wrapped an arm around her, holding her maybe a little too tight, but Adria didn't complain. 

Echo draped her arm over both of them, pushing up enough to lean over Adria to steal a kiss from Luna before settling back down, tucking back a strand of Adria's hair and smiling sadly as the girl's eyes drooped shut. "Good night, Adria," she whispered. "I love you." 

"Mmm," Adria said. Her eyelids fluttered but didn't open again. She was out. 

"We should try to sleep," Echo said. "Morning will be here before we know it, and we need to be able to put on our happy faces." 

Ontari snorted. "I was never very good at that."

"You will be tomorrow," Luna said. "Because it matters more than any of Nia's parties ever did."

Ontari made a noise that didn't sound particularly like agreement and settled back down. Luna listened as her breathing shifted slowly into the patterns of sleep. She closed her own eyes because it hurt too much to watch Echo watching Adria, knowing that it might be the last time. 

The sky was already beginning to glow with the first hints of dawn when sleep finally dragged her down.


	4. Clarke

"Mom?"

Clarke looked up from the sketch she'd been working on to find Madi standing in the doorway to the living room still in her pajamas despite the fact that it was almost noon, the toes of one foot curled over the other, her hair wild around her head where it had escaped the braids they tried to trap it in to prevent snarls the next morning. 

"What, babe?" she asked, setting the sketchbook aside and holding out her arms. 

Madi flopped into her lap, and it was a more of an impact that she'd been expecting, but probably should have considering the fact that these days when Madi wasn't eating, she was complaining she was hungry. Clarke suspected that before the summer was over she would be growing out of the clothes that they'd bought a little bit big for this exact reason. "I don't think I should go to the party," she said. 

"No?" Clarke asked, wrapping her arms around Madi and kissing her head. "Why not?"

"I have a stomachache."

"I'm sorry to hear that," Clarke said. "Where does it hurt?"

Madi shrugged. "My stomach."

"Right, but is it up high, near your ribs, or down low in your intestines like you need to poop, or—"

"Ew, Mom, gross," Madi said. 

Clarke grinned. "It's important diagnostic information," she said. "I need to have an idea of what's wrong if I'm going to give you the right medicine." 

"I don't need medicine," Madi said. 

"You just said your stomach hurt," Clarke pointed out. "Medicine might help."

"It won't."

"How do you know?" Clarke asked. 

"Because," Madi said, pushing her face harder into Clarke's shoulder. "I just do."

"Okay," Clarke said. She rested her cheek against Madi's head and rubbed her back in long, slow strokes. "If there's anything I can do, you let me know."

Madi nodded, and Clarke just held her, waiting for the words to come tumbling out, because they always did eventually. Keeping her thoughts and feelings in wasn't one of Madi's strong suits, and Clarke wasn't inclined to try to change that about her, as long as her words weren't intended to hurt people. 

It took a few minutes, but finally she mumbled, "I don't want to meet Adria's mom." 

_Ah._ Clarke had thought it might have something to do with that, but she hadn't wanted to assume. "Why not?"

Madi lifted her head. "Because everyone always says if you don't have anything nice to say, not to say anything at all, and I do _not_ have anything nice to say to her," she said. "I know that Adria loves her, but I don't understand why. _At all._ She says mean stuff to her about how she costs so much money and takes up so much time and stuff like that, and then she just _leaves_ her and _disappears_ and it's okay this time because she left her with Echo and Luna, but other times the people she got left with weren't so good people, and mostly they just forgot she was even there but that meant that they forgot to give her food and stuff, too, and, and..." She swallowed hard. "If I have to meet her, I might just tell her that I wish she'd stayed gone, because Adria belongs _here_ with _us_ and not with her. Ever. Again." 

Clarke took a moment, wishing that Lexa was here with her, but she'd gone out for a run and now she was probably helping set up for the party. Not that Lexa would know what to say any more than she did, necessarily, but at least Clarke would have someone to fall back on if words completely failed her. She hugged Madi again. "I agree with you that Adria belongs here," she said, "and we are all doing everything that we can to make sure that she gets to stay here. You know—" She stopped herself before saying anything about Echo and Luna wanting to adopt her, because she wasn't sure that Madi _did_ know that. They were all careful about what they said around her, and around Adria, because there was so much of the situation that was out of their control and they didn't want to get their hopes up. "I also know that in your heart you are kind, and you want Adria to be happy. So if you have to meet her mom, I know that you will be polite and not say anything that might upset Adria unless you have to say it to protect her. I know that you can do that. Right?" 

Madi nodded slowly, but she didn't look convinced. 

"And if you have to meet her and you really, really want to say something that wouldn't be nice, but you know that you shouldn't say it, you can always excuse yourself. Say that you need to go to the bathroom or something. Then you can come find me or Mama and you can say it to us instead, and we will help you find a way to handle the situation better. How does that sound?"

"Okay, I guess," Madi said. "But what happens if she tries to take her after? Adria said her car is broken so she couldn't take her yesterday, but what if today it's fixed and she tries to take her? You won't let her, will you? You _can't_." 

"We will cross that bridge if we come to it," Clarke said, "but we're not there yet. It's good to be prepared for things that might happen, but it's also good to not always assume that the worst is going to happen. Prepare for the worst but hope for the best."

"So I have to go to the party?" Madi asked. 

Clarke suppressed a sigh. "I'm not going to make you," she said. "If you really don't feel good, we can stay inside." She touched Madi's cheek gently. "But I think that Adria will be lonely without you, and I think that everyone else will miss you, too. Don't forget that this party is partly for you!" She tugged one of Madi's braid's gently. "Also, I heard a rumor that Murphy and Emori are bringing a _big_ surprise with them – and they said they mean that literally. If we don't go, we might miss out on something awesome." 

Madi wrinkled her nose, considering, then finally heaved a sigh. "Okay," she said. "We can go."

"Okay," Clarke said. "I guess we'd better start getting ready, then."

* * *

By the time Adria's mother finally arrived, along with Adria's aunt, Madi seemed to have forgotten that she'd ever had any doubts about coming to the party in the first place. They had ridden their bikes for a while, accompanied by Veelu, who was still a little wobbly on two wheels, but insisted that Marcus take off her training wheels anyway. Then they'd spent some time playing with Persy, and now that the food was out, they were chowing down on plates heaped with picnic food. 

There was more of a mix of people there than their usual parties because they were celebrating so many things all at once, and people had branched out beyond just the family when issuing invitations. Tris had invited some of her friends from the dojang, and her mother had showed up with her younger siblings, although she looked ill-at-ease and Anya had had to intervene before an argument broke out between mother and daughter over the fact that Tris had chosen not to attend her actual graduation ceremony. Aden and his mother were there, as was one of Anya's moms. Octavia had invited people from school and her internship as well, since among the many things they were celebrating were her birthday and grad school graduation. They'd even invited Madi's former foster mother, Ms. Green, but she hadn't been sure if she would be able to make it.

Even so, it was as if something shifted when Ashley arrived. Everything seemed to slow down, just for a second, as if the universe felt it necessary to call attention to her presence. Clarke saw Adria freeze, and then very slowly stand up and walk toward her, her fluffy white companion Kodi at her side as she greeted her. There were no hugs exchanged; instead Ashley shoved a grocery bag with a couple of bags of chips in it a her. Adria took them dutifully over to the table where the food was, putting them with the rest. She just stood there then like she didn't know what she was supposed to do – go back to her friends, or go to her mother? 

She was saved having to make a decision by the fact that at that moment Murphy announced that the surprise was ready, and they all followed him around to the other side of the house, where a giant inflatable unicorn (it had to be at least six feet high) loomed, water spraying from its horn. "I hope you brought your bathing suits!" he said. "It was this or a T-Rex, but I decided unicorns were cooler, and where was the water going to come out of a T-Rex, anyway?" 

"I think you'd better stop there," Emori said. "Quit while you're ahead."

Murphy grinned. "When have I ever done that?" But he did refrain from any further commentary regarding water-spewing dinosaur orifices. 

Madi came running up to her. "Mom, can I?"

"Can you what?" Clarke asked.

"Get my bathing suit? It's _soooo_ hot out!"

"Of course," Clarke said. "Get a towel, too."

"Okay!" Madi sprinted for the house, and Clarke watched to make sure that she made it safely there without faceplanting. Veelu was already stripping down; Echo had clearly given her mom warning about the possibility of some sort of water activity, because she'd come already in her bathing suit. Gina had gone inside to get Persy changed into a swim diaper, because if the other kids were playing, there was no way she was going to be left out. Only Adria still stood there, looking back and forth between Ashley and Echo and Luna, looking ready to cry. 

Clarke went over to her and crouched down. "What's wrong?" she asked. 

Adria bit her lip and shook her head, but then said softly, "I don't know who I'm supposed to ask!" 

"I think you're okay not asking," Clarke said, because she didn't know who she was supposed to ask, either. "You can just go inside and put on your bathing suit. Echo and Luna wouldn't have let Murphy turn it on if they didn't want people playing in it."

"But what if Mommy gets mad?" Adria asked. 

"Then I'll tell her that I said it was okay," Clarke said, "and she can be mad at me." 

"She's really good at being mad," Adria said. 

"That's okay," Clarke said. "I can take it. Go on. I heard that you got a mermaid bathing suit; I'd love to see it." 

"I did," Adria said, smiling shyly. "Ontari got it for me." 

Clarke smiled. "Well let's see it!"

Adria finally nodded and went inside. Clarke passed Luna as she went to find Lexa to tell her to get her camera if she didn't already have it and Luna caught her arm. "Thank you," she said. "I would have—"

"I know," Clarke said. "And I know you would do the same for me." They'd joked about it a little bit, but with their two families – assuming they remained intact after today – living so close, the idea of developing some sort of plan on how to handle situations like this wasn't a bad one. If their kids were at each other's houses all the time, they should at least some kind of common ground, rules-wise. But that was a conversation for another day. Right now, they were just putting out fires as they sprung up and waiting to see how this was all going to play out.

It turned out Lexa was one step ahead of her and already had her camera. "I just have to make sure to stay out of the splash zone with it," she said. "One day I'll get a waterproof camera, but this is not it." She leaned in and kissed Clarke's cheek. "Everything all right?"

Clarke shook her head. "Not yet," she said, "but hopefully it will be." Her eyes tracked toward Ashley, who was sitting with her sister looking like she wanted to be anywhere but here. 

Lexa's jaw tightened. "Without us having to go nuclear," she said. "But I swear—"

"Prepare for the worst and hope for the best," Clarke said. "That's what I told Madi." 

"What about Madi?" Madi asked. She held up a towel. "Will you hold this for me?"

"I'm your Mom, not a towel rack!" she teased. "But fine. Go have fun. I'll just be here... holding this towel... waiting for you to come back..." 

Madi laughed. "Thanks, Mom!" She dashed off to where Veelu and Persy were already bouncing, waiting for her and Adria before they ran, shouting, into the cold spray. Lexa followed, camera poised.

Clarke glanced over when she heard someone approaching and was slightly surprised to see that it was Ashley, and even more surprised to see that she was scowling as she watched the girls dart in and out of the water. 

"Hi," she said, offering a hand, which was ignored. "I'm Clarke. Madi's mom." She pointed to Madi in case Ashley didn't know. 

"I don't know why you're doing all of this," Ashley said. "You're just setting them up to be disappointed when they get into the real world."

Clarke's eyebrows went up. "This... isn't real?" she asked. "Seems pretty real to me."

Ashley snorted. "Right. It's just parties and fun all the time. If you think that, then I guess you're in for a rude awakening, too."

"Not all the time," Clarke said, "but sometimes. When you've got something to celebrate, and we've got a lot to celebrate so we decided to just throw one big party for everything all at once." She looked over at Ashley. "Do you think we did all of this just to impress you? Because believe me, this was all planned long before you—long before we knew you were coming."

"I bet you wish I hadn't," Ashley said. Clarke clenched her jaw to keep from responding to that. She knew she was being baited and she had no intention of taking the hook. When Ashley realized it wasn't going work, she asked, "Who even are all these people?"

"Our family," Clarke said. "Some of it by blood, most of it not. A bunch of people who didn't quite know where they fit in who found out they fit with each other. If you want me to be more specific, I can." 

Ashley frowned, but then nodded. "Yeah, go ahead." 

So Clarke took her around, telling her who people were, introducing her to some of them, and after a while she seemed to relax a little. Maybe all she'd needed was to be made to feel like she belonged. She'd struck up a conversation with some of Octavia's school friends when Madi and Adria found them, finally shriveled and shivering enough (the water from the hose was not warm) to leave their new unicorn friend behind.

Clarke wrapped Madi up in her towel, rubbing her arms, and watched as Adria went up to Ashley clutching a bundle of flowers that she'd obviously gotten from the garden (hopefully with permission, but Clarke was sure that Echo and Luna wouldn't care much if she hadn't asked). "Look, Mommy," she said. "I picked these for you."

Ashley couldn't hide her annoyance, and it didn't take a genius to figure out it was because of the look of surprise on the face of the guy she'd been flirting with when Adria called her 'mommy'. "I was talking," she snapped, "and you know I have allergies. And you're dripping all over me." She reached out like she was actually going to push Adria away, but then noticed everyone looking at her and took the flowers instead, setting them down on the ground at her feet. 

Clarke felt Madi stiffen, saw the way that her jaw was set and knew her blood was boiling. "Why don't you two go change back into your clothes?" she suggested. "It's going to be cake time soon."

"Don't—" Ashley said, but then stopped herself. "Yes, go change, Adria. It's bad for you to sit around in a wet bathing suit. You could—" Again, she cut herself off, maybe realizing that she was calling attention to herself, and not in a good way. "I'll go help you."

"I don't need help," Adria said, her chin quivering. "I'm not—"

"You can show me your d—your room," Ashley said. "I want to see your room, baby girl." She forced a smile. 

Clarke went and grabbed her sister. "Come on," she said. "You should change, too, so you don't get too cold. Inside. In your room." Which was next to Adria's room, and Clarke could only hope that their presence would keep Ashley from trying to punish Adria further for interrupting and ruining whatever chance she'd thought she had. Apparently she had missed the fact that Octavia's friends were all social workers, and ought to be considered, in Ashley's worldview, the enemy.

"Okay," Veelu said. "I just need my backpack. We packed clothes I can leave here for when I come visit so I don't have to always pack!" 

"Good idea," Clarke said. She let Veelu lead the way, following her as she tromped confidently up the stairs as if she belonged here, which, of course, she did. Clarke listened to her chatter about the things that she'd brought and about her preschool graduation ceremony (which Clarke had attended, but that didn't spare her the commentary) before turning to speculation about whether they were going to have one big giant hugemongous cake or different littler ones, but she kept her other ear on what was happening in the room next door. Not much, from the sounds of it, and Clarke was grateful. She stayed inside while Adria gave Ashley a tour of the rest of the house, only leaving when they were back out where there were other witnesses. 

She went and found Lexa, who was helping with the cake, which turned out to be three different cakes in different flavors: chocolate raspberry for birthdays (Octavia and Lexa), tres leches for graduations (Octavia, Ontari, Tris, and Veelu) and almond-apricot for anniversaries (Clarke and Lexa's second wedding, and Madi's first adoption-versary). 

"Before we start," Luna called, "is there anything else we should be celebrating?"

Clarke saw Tris nudge Aden, who nudged his mom, who shook her head at him, smiling. "I just got back my most recent test results," she said. "I'm officially five years cancer free, which means they consider me to be cured."

Everyone cheered, Lexa one of the loudest. She'd been there for Aden when his mother was first diagnosed, and it had been a hard time for her, bringing up memories of her own mother, who had been so far gone when her own cancer had been discovered that they'd gone straight to palliative care. They'd never even tried to cure her. So Clarke could only imagine how much of a victory this must feel like for her to know that her little protégé wouldn't have to go through the same thing. 

"That is definitely something to celebrate," Luna said, "although I'm not sure we have any room on the cakes to write it."

Ms. Wolfe laughed. "That's all right. I'll just—"

"Oh, I'll make it fit," Murphy said, whipping a little tube of icing from somewhere (did he just keep them in his pockets, just in case?) and adding 'Happy Cure Ms. Wolfe!" in tiny writing to the birthday cake. "Since it's sort of like a re-birth day," he added by way of explanation the cake choice. Clarke suspected it had more to do with that one having the most room available to add the words. 

Madi wormed her way between them and peered up. "If they're little pieces can I have one of each flavor?" she asked. 

Clarke glanced at Lexa, who rolled her eyes and laughed. "Yes," she said. "If they're _little_."

"She'll probably go back seconds anyway," Lexa said after she'd gone to get her cake. "It's like one of her legs is completely hollow."

"It'll probably be two inches longer tomorrow," Clarke said. 

"I hope not," Lexa grumbled. "It took forever to find shorts that she didn't think were too short to begin with!" 

"Your little bug is growing up," Clarke said. 

"Objection," Lexa said, wrapping her arms around her. 

Clarke nuzzled her cheek. "The rules of human development say, 'Overruled'."

"Asshole," Lexa muttered. 

"Will cake make it better?" Clarke asked. 

"Only if I can have all three flavors," Lexa said.

Clarke grinned. "As long as they're small."


	5. Lexa

Lexa was watching Madi and Adria and Veelu excitedly pressing their hands to Emori's belly, trying to feel the Razzbaby kick (and trying not to think too hard about it) when Ashley sat down beside her. "You're the lawyer, right?" she asked. 

"I'm a law student," Lexa said. 

"But you're the one who gave your friend—" Ashley pointed to Emori, "the information about giving her up. Right?" She pointed to Adria, as if Lexa might somehow not know who she was talking about. 

"Yes," Lexa said. "Information that I got from some of my professors, or that they got from their colleagues who work in adoption." 

"And they're sure that if I sign those papers, or whatever papers I need to sign, that she'll end up _here_ , and not get shoved into some other foster home?"

Lexa pressed her lips together because no, it wasn't an absolute guarantee. But if she told Ashley that, would she blow any chance of her actually doing it? "As sure as anything can be when dealing with the courts," she said carefully. "Adria would be appointed a guardian _ad litem_ , and you would have the opportunity to express you wishes, and Adria would have the opportunity to express what she wants to have happen as well. The guardian _ad litem_ then makes their recommendation to the family court. In this case, there is no reason to believe that they wouldn't recommend that Adria stay in the place that she's come to think of as home, with the people she has come to think of as family."

Ashley frowned. "Why?" she asked. "Why do they want her so bad? Is it because they can't have their own kids?"

Lexa bit the inside of her lip. "It's because they love her," she said. "If they just wanted a kid, they could have a kid – sperm donors exist – or adopt. But they don't just want a kid. They want Adria. They _love_ Adria. We all do. My daughter... it would break her heart to lose her best friend. Who would Auntie Ontari get to buy mermaid things for? Murphy would miss her in Kids' Culinary Academy; she's the only one who actually reads the recipe all the way through before diving in! She would never get to meet the Razzbaby..." 

"Razzbaby?" Ashley asked.

"Emori's baby," Lexa said. Who must have decided to take a nap, because the girls were no longer clustered around her. "When they found out she was pregnant, Veelu – that's the little one there – wanted to know if she could see it, but Emori said it was too small to see on the outside yet. It was only the size of a raspberry. Madi turned that into Razzbaby, and it stuck. Even though I think they're a rutabaga this week." She smiled. "Point being... we love her. We'll take care of her. She has a good life here, and we will move heaven and earth if we have to to make sure it stays that way."

Ashley looked around, her eyes narrowed, her mouth tipped down, finally landing on where Madi and Adria were now giggling together as they tried to convince Kodi to wear a flower crown, at least long enough for them to get a picture. She shook her head. "Tell me what I need to do."

* * *

After the party was cleaned up and everyone had gone home, after Clarke had taken Madi inside and Echo had done the same with Adria, Lexa caught Luna before she could follow, pulling her into a hug and holding her tight. "It's going to be okay," she told her. 

Luna nodded slowly, like she wasn't sure that she could really believe it. Lexa understood. There was a reason she and Clarke hadn't bought anything for Madi until they'd been absolutely sure that they would get to bring her home. Planning ahead had felt like they might be jinxing it. Obviously it had gone past that with Adria – she had a room and clothing and books and toys – but it still felt risky to let hope creep in too far. But there _was_ hope, and Lexa wasn't going to withhold that if it meant her friends might sleep a little easier that night.

"When?" Luna asked. "How soon?"

"She said she'll talk to the lawyer tomorrow," Lexa said. "I said I would go with her."

"She could still change her mind," Luna said. "Nothing is sure. She could disappear in the night and leave us back where we started."

"That's true," Lexa said, "but I don't think she will. I really don't."

"I don't think I can let myself believe until I see it in writing with all the official seals," Luna said. 

"I know," Lexa said. "But I'm going to believe hard enough for both of us."

Luna smiled. "Thank you."

Lexa hugged her again. "What are friends for?"

* * *

Ashley didn't disappear in the night. She was waiting for Lexa when she came to pick her up the next day, wearing what Lexa assumed was her best outfit, an approximation of how she thought a responsible adult should dress. Not that it was necessary, but Lexa appreciated the effort. If she looked put together, they were more likely to believe that she knew what she was doing it, and she was doing it for the right reasons, not on a whim, and not because she was being coerced. 

After that initial meeting, things happened quickly. Lexa had been told about the process, but not in great detail, and there were more steps to it than she'd been aware of. Luckily, everyone involved seemed to realize that Ashley was a flight risk, and that even if her disappearing didn't leave Adria in danger, it would leave her in a legal limbo that no one really wanted. So they expedited the process as much as they could. Lexa suspected a favor or two might have been called in, although no one ever said anything specific. 

While things were happening with Ashley, they were also clearing hurdles and jumping through hoops to make sure that Luna and Echo would be allowed to adopt her. Because Adria wasn't officially in the Child and Family Services system, it wasn't exactly like what Lexa and Clarke had gone through to get Madi, but it wasn't entirely dissimilar, and there were a few sleepless nights for Luna and Echo as they worried that somehow they would be found unfit to be Adria's parents, even though they had been for the last six months. Thankfully, no objections were raised, and they finally got the call they'd been hoping for: the papers were signed. Ashley had terminated her parental rights. How soon could they come in to finalize the adoption?

* * *

The entire family would have come for the adoption ceremony if Echo and Luna had allowed it, but they thought it might be too overwhelming for Adria, who hated being the center of attention, and with everything happening, she had to be pretty fragile right now. 

Lexa hadn't been there when Adria said goodbye to her mother, but she was grateful that Ashley hadn't just taken off again without giving her the opportunity to do so. Luna said that it had been a surprisingly unemotional affair; Adria was used to letting Ashley go by now, and at least this time she knew what came next. Ashley hadn't stuck around to witness the adoption.

Adria had agreed that she wouldn't mind if Madi and Clarke and Lexa were there (and Ontari, of course) so they'd gotten dressed in their nicest summer clothes and made the trek for the second time to the family court.

Adria's case number was called, and they filed in. When Madi saw that it was the same judge who had finalized her adoption, she waved, and Lexa couldn't help smiling when the judge waved back. "I see some familiar faces today," she said. "How have things been since I last saw you?"

"Amazing," Clarke said. 

"Exhausting," Lexa added.

"We're getting a puppy next weekend!" Madi announced. 

"Wow!" the judge said. "It sounds like everything is working out for you all."

"Yes, your honor," Lexa said. 

"So what brings you here today?" she asked. 

"We're just moral support," Clarke said. "Our friends are adopting their daughter."

"Who is my BFF," Madi added. "We all live on a farm together." 

"I see." The judge looked down, her eyes fixing on Adria. "You must be the daughter and BFF, am I right?" Adria nodded, tucking herself tight against Luna's side. Luna reached down to rub her back. "Adria Waters. So you must be Luna and Echo." 

"Yes ma'am," they responded. 

"I've already heard from everyone involved in the case, and you wouldn't be here today if I didn't agree that your adoption of Miss Waters was the best thing for her, so give me just one minute and we will get things going." She said something quietly to one of the court officials, and they left. While they were gone, she asked all of the questions she was required to ask and read them all of the things she was required to read. The official returned with a folder, and she called Luna and Echo up to the front, indicating where they should sign. 

She then pulled another sheet from the folder that had been brought in and had them sign that as well. "Miss Waters, can you come up?" she asked. Adria approached slowly, her eyes wide. "It's all right," the judge said gently. "I just thought you might like to sign, too. You're old enough to know what you want, and you want to be part of this family, right?" 

"Yes," Adria said, and then added, "please." 

"Then sign your name right here, and it will be official." The judge handed her a pen, and Adria carefully signed her name on the line. The judge looked up and winked at Madi, who bounced on her toes, tugging on Lexa's hand until she leaned down. "That's because of me!" she whispered. 

"I know," Lexa whispered back. 

And just like that, it was done, and the judge was wishing them all the best before calling in the next case. They made their way quietly through the halls and out into the sunshine... and then Echo scooped Adria up and spun her around, hugging her tight and then handing her over to Luna to do the same. Ontari got her next, and then Madi. Adria looked slightly dazed when she looked up at Lexa and Clarke, but she was smiling, so they hugged her too. "We're happy to have you," they told her. "We're so glad you're officially part of the family now." 

"Me too," she said softly, and started to cry. 

Echo picked her up again and they headed to a nearby park, where Luna and Echo sat with her to try to get her calmed down. 

"There's an ice cream place nearby," Ontari said. "I know it doesn't solve everything, but..."

Clarke smiled. "It certainly can't hurt." So they went and got cones for everyone, and by the time they got back, Adria's tears had dried up, and she was as happy as any other kid as soon as she had a few bites of ice cream in her. 

When the ice cream was gone (and hands and faces had been wiped with the moist towelettes that they had learned to always carry) Madi tugged on Lexa's hand. "Can I give it to her now?" she asked. "Please?"

"All right," Lexa said. She unslung her backpack and reached inside for the package that Madi had wrapped the night before in wrapping paper that she and Clarke had made themselves with leftover packing paper and stamps made from potatoes. 

"This is for you," Madi said, handing it to Adria. "It was Mama's when she was a little girl; she got it from her mom. Then when Echo was new to the family, Mama gave it to her, and then when I got adopted last year, Echo gave it to me."

Lexa saw that Echo's eyes had gone glassy; she already knew what she was going to see. Adria untied the ribbon and carefully peeled away the paper to reveal the watercolor of a certain little blue alien and the mantra that bound them all together: 'Ohana means family, and family means no one gets left behind, or forgotten.'

"Thank you," Adria whispered, and set it down carefully so that she could hug Madi. 

"You're welcome," Madi said, hugging her back.

And then Echo's arms were around Lexa, and Lexa's around Luna, and Clarke worked her way into the four-way hug as they all fought to keep their emotions at a level that wouldn't alarm the children. When they were breathing mostly normally, and their eyes were only a little damp, they broke apart, but only to add Ontari, Madi, and Adria to the circle. 

When they finally let go, Adria picked up the picture again, tracing her finger along the edge of the frame, which was slightly worse for the wear, but it was twenty years old and well-loved, so what could you expect? 

Madi reached out to touch it too, one last time. "Maybe someday there will be someone who needs it more than you do, and then you'll give it to them. But right now it belongs to you, and you belong to us."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You didn't _really _think I would take their daughter away, did you?__
> 
> __I honestly have no idea if adoptions can happen that way, nor do I care. It's my world, and I make the rules. :-P_ _
> 
> __And yes, Ontari _does_ think that the answer to Highly Emotional Situations is always ice cream. Fight her. ;-)_ _


End file.
